The RSC’s critically acclaimed production of Shakespeare’s great political thriller Julius Caesar finds dark contemporary echoes in modern Africa, as actor Paterson Joseph tells Dave Owens

THERE’S a timeless synergy to the latest staging of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. This production, by the Royal Shakespeare Company, is unique as it is set in Africa and stars an all black cast.

One of the play’s most recognisable names is that of Paterson Joseph, a familiar face from his myriad TV roles in shows such as Peep Show and Survivors.

Taking on the pivotal role of Brutus – one of the conspirators who assassinate Caesar, the actor says the role would have appealed to him irrespective of its setting.

“I think I would have done the play anyway because it’s such a fascinating story,” he explains. “I don’t think it was just the setting which encouraged me to get involved, but it does work in our context because if you have a sense of Africa it’s struggled with its freedom fighters who became dictators – and then with the coups that followed and the subsequent vacuum inevitably left after. I think that lends itself very well to this play.

“Caesar is obviously a great man, whether we think he’s trying to be a king or not, he was a great man. But now he’s become tyrannical, so it follows the pattern of a lot of African countries in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, it’s a fitting shape for the play.”

Brutus is also a meaty role for the actor to get his teeth into.

“He is the chief conspirator against Caesar. He firmly believes Caesar is desiring to be crowned king and because his ancestors the Brutii had driven out the king he feels the onus is on him to lead rebellion against this potential king. He’s slightly reluctant but thinks it through and believes it is the best thing to do.”

Julius Caesar is rightly considered a powerful play and one that has evidently resonated throughout the ages. Paterson himself is no stranger to the power of theatre to provoke a passionate strength of feeling.

He talks about performing in Romania in the late ’80s, at the pivotal moment before the revolutions which erupted and spread across eastern Europe.

“I played Bucharest National Theatre and (former Romanian president Nicolae) Ceausescu was still on the throne as it were and it was a rather awful atmosphere,” he recalls.

“We were doing a play called Philoctetes. What was extraordinary about that was we had done our British tour and acid house was the big thing at the time. In the play there’s a riot and we played acid house music and shouted ‘freedom’ at the top of our voices.

“We had performed this in places like Winchester back home and the audiences smiled politely but in Bucharest we had students screaming ‘freedom’ at us and stopping the play.

“The Bucharest show had all these members of Ceausescu’s politburo sat in the front row as the students continued to scream, it was very powerful.

“I’ve never thought theatre was cheap entertainment since then because of what it could do. Of course, not long after the subsequent coups led to freedom for those in the Eastern bloc. So you can put the morals of Julius Caesar in the European context but it’s more readily prescient when you think of Africa and the Arab Spring happening now.”

The 48-year-old says that staging Julius Caesar in an African setting with an all black cast has provoked some negative reaction from those Shakespeare aficionados who would rather the play be performed with due respect to tradition.

“There’s been some ignorance yes,” he sighs. “But when we talk about doing the plays as they were, well they did them originally in Elizabethan costumes and tights. If that’s what they want then they can have it, but I won’t be doing it.

“I think some people are just ignorant. Shakespeare didn’t have his actors speaking in received pronunciation as we have now simply because they didn’t have that accent then, it didn’t exist until the late 17th century. Before then people were speaking rather like those from the West Country – it sounded a bit Cornish.

“To be honest, you can give it to me in American, Caribbean, or an African accent and the language still comes alive.”

Julius Caesar opens at the New Theatre in Cardiff next week, a city the actor knows well after filming Doctor Who here, appearing alongside Christopher Eccleston in the episodes Bad Wolf and The Parting of the Ways, in which Eccleston regenerated into David Tennant.

“I think any actor of a certain age who remembers the Doctor Who of old would love to be in it.

“I did watch it when I was a kid. I can’t actually say I was obsessed with it as some other people are, but I was very happy to be shown around the Tardis,” he laughs.

“It was then I suddenly thought, ‘Wow this is really exciting’. I also got the chance to get killed by a Dalek and not many people can say that in their lives.